Thursday, January 15, 2009

"No man is more important than the team. No coach is more important than the team. The team, the team, the team. And if we think that way, all of us, everything that you do, you take into consideration what effect does it have on my team. Because you can go into professional football, you can go anywhere you want to play after you leave here, you will never play for a team again. You'll play for a contract, you'll play for this, you'll play for that. You'll play for everything except the team. Think what a great thing it is to be a part of something that is The Team." -- Bo Schembechler

In Mark Richt's final teleconference after the Capital One Bowl, he said he didn't want anyone at Georgia who wasn't ready to put their heart and soul into winning for the Bulldogs. That meant Rodney Garner and the other coaches. That meant Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno. As we've found out, it also meant Asher Allen and Reshad Jones. This hurts Georgia's talent level on the field, no doubt. But that hunger that many players and coaches said was missing last year certainly shouldn't be absent in 2009.

-- While Jones would become the fourth UGA underclassman to leave, LSU got some good news on two of its star players.

-- Even before the news of Jones' potential departure broke, the Sporting News had already called UGA the team most hurt by early draft entrees.

Q: If you were playing dodgeball and had first pick of anyone, who would it be?-Blake, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

A: I'd say a QB makes the most sense, because they're used to throwing bigger balls with a quick release. So the answer should be Georgia's Matthew Stafford. That kid has a bazooka. But I'd pick Brett Favre just for the chance to make the Eric Mangini Did-Somebody-Just-Fart-in-the-Car Face after Favre singlehandedly kills my team by getting picked off two minutes in.

So at least we know that Stafford will be someone's No. 1 pick. And Dodgeball may be better than playing for the Lions.

-- The American Sportscasters Association ranks the top 50 sportscasters of all time. The fact that Chris Berman is on this list angers me to no end, but the fact that he is ranked ahead of Harry Kalas makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork.

-- And finally, daddies, don't let your girls grow up to be Florida fans. This is what happens.

1. He routinely seems like the least prepared guy working at ESPN. He seems like he's been doing it so long he can just show up and wing it. Whether or not that is his actual thought process, I don't know, but considering you're on TV, probably best not to even appear like it's true.

2. His schtick = old.

3. On a regular basis, it is clear he is wearing a short-sleeved shirt under his suit jacket. I don't know why that annoys me, but it does. Goes back to the lack of professionalism, I guess.

4. He is bad at picking games. He always picks the Eagles. I blame him for the Eagles sucking (prior to this playoffs, knock on wood.)

5. He cannot go an entire Swami sketch without showing multiple highlights of himself from the mid 1980s or playing golf somewhere in Hawaii. Again, it's all about him.

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About the Author

Seth Emerson has been covering the SEC and Georgia (on and off) since 2002. He worked at the Albany Herald from 2002-05, then spent five years at The State in Columbia, S.C., covering South Carolina. He returned to Athens in August of 2010, only to find that David Pollack and David Greene were no longer playing for the Bulldogs. Adjustments were made.

Emerson is originally from Silver Spring, Md., and graduated from Maryland in 1998 with a degree in journalism and a minor in getting lost on the way to practically everywhere. Then he spent four years at The Washington Post, covering small colleges, a couple NCAA basketball tournaments, and on one glorious day, was yelled at by Tony Kornheiser. It was probably at The Post that he also learned to write in the third person.

These days he lives in Athens with his beloved and somewhat wimpy dog, Archie. Together they fight crime at night in northeast Georgia, except on nights there is no crime, in which case they sit at home, sip on white wine and watch reruns of "Mad Men."